Setting up a Development Environment

Biggest problem for me is to setup a development environment. I want to use an IDE such as Eclipse or Netbeans and I also need a compiler which is working under windows. As for compilers there are some choices like Mircosoft’s Visual C++ Compiler, Borland C++ or the GNU g++. Since my aim is to write a program for a Raspberry Pi I have chosen to use the GNU g++ compiler, which sadly does not run natively under Windows

Installing cygwin

I think cygwin does not need much explaination and also the setup is strait forward. Download the installer run it, choose packages to install, install and have fun.

But the bigger problem is the choice of the right packages. Here is a list of what I installed

gcc
gcc-g++
gcc-c
gdb
cmake
make

This should give you a very basic package for developing c++ applications.

Installing an IDE

For the IDE I choose Netbeans over Eclipse. Why? Hmm not easy explained. I have a lot of expirence with eclipse, but I just do not like its look. Yeah it was all about the look 🙂 For Netbeans choose the C++ Development Version and install it. Finished.

Now to the Setup. Go to „Tools -> Options“ there choose C++. Check if Netbeans has found your cygwin installation. If not click on „Add …“ to add the previously installed cygwin build tools. Then point to your <cygwin installdir>/bin and click ok. Netbeans should then find your compilers etc.